full--exceptin' only this settin'-room, and the bedchamber yonder
belonging to it."

So spoke "Mistress Inchbare," landlady of the Craig Fernie Inn, to Anne
Silvester, standing in the parlor, purse in hand, and offering the price
of the two rooms before she claimed permission to occupy them.

The time of the afternoon was about the time when Geoffrey Delamayn had
started in the train, on his journey to London. About the time also,
when Arnold Brinkworth had crossed the moor, and was mounting the first
rising ground which led to the inn.

Mistress Inchbare was tall and thin, and decent and dry. Mistress
Inchbare's unlovable hair clung fast round her head in wiry little
yellow curls. Mistress Inchbare's hard bones showed themselves, like
Mistress Inchbare's hard Presbyterianism, without any concealment or
compromise. In short, a savagely-respectable woman who plumed herself on
presiding over a savagely-respectable inn.

There was no competition to interfere with Mistress Inchbare. She
regulated her own prices, and made her own rules. If you objected to
her prices, and revolted from her rules, you were free to go. In other
words, you were free to cast yourself, in the capacity of houseless
wanderer, on the scanty mercy of a Scotch wilderness. The village of
Craig Fernie was a collection of hovels. The country about Craig Fernie,
mountain on one side and moor on the other, held no second house of
public entertainment, for miles and miles round, at any point of the
compass. No rambling individual but the helpless British Tourist wanted
food and shelter from strangers in that part of Scotland; and nobody
but Mistress Inchbare had food and shelter to sell. A more thoroughly